In coordination with the Central College Student Council and the Student Wellness Unit, Ms Castillo gave the seminar to some 150 Dominican student leaders from various courses and year levels “to encourage environmental advocacy in Saint Dominic,” according to Ms. Jasmin Quintans, Student Wellness Unit Coordinator.

In a powerpoint presentation developed by former US Vice President and Nobel Laureate Al Gore, Ms. Castillo discussed the destructive effects of choking the atmosphere with greenhouse gases due to human activities using fossil fuels which resulted to global warming and climate change. She pointed out the different impacts of climate change to the environment, human health, biodiversity, agriculture, and infrastructure.

Ms Castillo also put to light the vulnerability of a country such as the Philippines to global climate change, citing the powerful typhoons in the past years as mild precedent of graver things to come if the current generation does not act. As her personal acts of leadership, she also shared that she is promoting plant-based diet by being vegan and also presented her advocacy to ban the sale of disposable bottles in school canteens. Her online petition can be found in here: https://www.bataris.org.ph/petitions/ban-disposable-bottles-from-school-canteensShe conducted a workshop with the student leaders asking them to discuss and decide on simple climate change solutions they could commit to in their personal capacity, or as student leaders, in their home, school, and community.

Ms Castillo is a development professional with over 15 years of experience in multiple fields dealing with environmental and humanitarian work. She was trained by Al Gore in Jakarta in 2011 and has since presented the updated climate change decks in key cities all over the country, reaching an audience of about 15,000.Catch updates about her advocacy on twitter at https://twitter.com/shiela_rc and her blog at https://shielarcastillo.wordpress.com/ . She is also on linkedin